Now, with less than week to go before Tuesday's deadline for returning mail ballots in the special election to replace Wu in Oregon's 1st Congressional District, Cornilles is bringing the theme to his TV advertising.

The new ad opens with an image of Bonamici speaking as Wu listens in the background, his campaign sign clearly visible. The photo was taken in 2006 when several Democratic candidates held a rally before participating in a Beaverton civic parade.

"The same people who covered up for David Wu are now deceiving you about Rob Cornilles," an announcer says in the ad, an apparent reference to the commercials that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Bonamici and other groups have run criticizing Cornilles.

The ad then goes on to criticize Bonamici for supporting tax increases while she was in the Oregon Legislature and to claim she doesn't have a record of "job creation." Bonamici has acknowledged voting for several tax increases -- which she said the state needed to do to preserve jobs and other services -- but said she sponsored bills that helped bring more state loan aid and other investments to businesses to help them create jobs.

Republicans have repeatedly pointed out that Bonamici's husband, Michael Simon, represented Wu and his campaign as an attorney, and that in 2004 Simon sought to dissuade The Oregonian from running an investigatory article disclosing that Wu was punished while a student at Stanford University after he sexually assaulted a former girlfriend.

Bonamici gave Wu a $250 donation during his 2010 reelection race and had once described him as a "family friend." But she has said during this campaign that she had no knowledge of the questions about his mental health that were raised by some of his staffers during the last weeks of the 2010 race. And she said her husband, now a federal judge, has represented a lot of people and that she should be judged on her own record.

Carol Butler, Bonamici's campaign manager, charged that the ad was "the last gasp of a desperate campaign" and was not relevant to the issues that voters are concerned about.

Cornilles said the real sign of desperation is that Democratic Party groups are spending large sums of money on what he said are inaccurate attacks on his credibility and background.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending $1.3 million on TV ads attacking Cornilles, far outpacing the TV bought by either candidate.